At last...

It's hard to move on after a message like that, but really what else can you do? I don't know about "Hans would have wanted it that way", but all the same... he spent a lifetime being active in the community and bringing joy to other people, so I'm sure he won't blame me for having fun. But still.
On April 6, 1997, I met a beautiful girl in Paris. We started talking and she tells me she's from Mauritius. I thought she was confused in her otherwise flawless English, and asked her if she meant Mauritania. Nope, she said, Mauritius. And she pointed out, using her hands (like the people in Michigan) where it is. On March 6, 2007, I set foot on Mauritian soil. I am so thrilled I made it here in under ten years, and I hope I will be back in the next 9 years and 11 months!

For the most part, the country has been exactly what I expected, with one notable difference: it rains a lot here (picture left)! Inland, near the town of Curepipe, it always rains, but even along the coast you get some rain every day. Now, I don't mind the rain, even though it makes the humidity seem worse still. But the problem is that rain falls from clouds (duh), so it's clouded here a lot. I asked if it was perhaps the "rainy" season and they all looked at me surprised. This is normal.

You know you're close to the equator when: the sun sets before you realize it. One of my first days here, I wanted to walk to the north-west tip of the island, which is about an hour away, to see the sunset from that peninsula. When I left, at around 5.30 pm, the sun was still high in the sky. But by the time I got there, at around 6.45 pm, the sun had been gone for some 15 minutes already (picture right). So, short days here. Luckily I still got to catch a pretty nice sunset a few days later, as you've all seen a few posts below, and a couple more nice ones after that. I hope I can get one with some wild animal, or a pyramid in the background on the remainder of my journey, haha.

You know you're on a tropical island when: the second most lethal type of accident, after traffic accidents, are coconut-related. That's right. People (often tourists) get the "romantic" idea of sleeping under a coconut tree. But, when one of those things come down on your head from these tremendous heights, you're not likely to survive it! Nonetheless, I find it quite amusing.

The people in Mauritius are awesome. It is no surprise that the girl I met so many years ago at the Harvard conference in Paris was beautiful. The people of Mauritius are a well-aged blend of Indian, Creole, African, European, and Chinese. If there's no better argument against racism, it is that the people here are so beautiful. Speaking of racism, Mauritius should be a model for the rest of the world: Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and Confucians live side by side in harmony, nobody tries to impose their thing on you, and no internal strife is visible. Take that, "developed" world!! Well, they do have a problem with the Dutch, to be honest. When the Dutch arrived in Mauritius, they killed and ate all of their national bird, the "dodo", in just 40 years time. For shame!

I stayed in the very north of Mauritius, in a town called Grand Baie. And it really is a large bay indeed (the Dutch had called it "Bogt Zonder Eyndt" when they landed here in the late 16th Century). It's a rather touristy town, and from my hotel I look out straight into the bay (picture above right is pretty much my view). The bay, however, is mostly for boats; to swim I walk just up the bay, maybe 10 minutes or so, and get a beautiful beach there. But, every day I get breakfast on my own balcony, so who's complaining about a short stroll to the beach, right?

The rest of the north is all quite nice and developed. Trou aux Biches, the infamous sunset-site, is perhaps the most popular place in the north; When you go east of here, there isn't much else beyond Cap Malheureux, the northern most point of the island.

In the east, the coast (picture left) is quite undeveloped, with not too many big (or small) hotels around. There are some notable exceptions though, and the beach around Belle Mare for example was especially beautiful. The reasons for the lack of development are simple. Firstly, there are lots of coral reefs just off the coast in the east. Though poplar with divers, this doesn't exactly make for very good swimming... The second reason, and very noticeable, is that this is the "wind" side of the island. It can get rather chilly when you're getting close to sunset (or at least, when you're getting out of the water at that time), so perhaps that's why the major developers have largely stayed away from this area.

The south is even less developed, but probably also less developable (if that's a word). The town of Mahebourg, in the south-east, is luckily not too developed yet, and you really get a sense of some long-gone African or Indian civilization there. Continuing west from there, there's beautiful Blue Bay, but not much else after that until you get to La Roche Qui Pleure, which marks the southern most site of the country (picture right). From there, you get a beautiful drive (which I did in my rented car!) to the west, all the way to Le Morne Brabant, a Gibraltar-like rock on a Peninsula with some of the most beautiful beaches.

On the west coast, of course the capital, Port Louis, is one of the main focal points. There are a fair few beautiful sights around (I especially enjoyed getting to visit the Jummah Mosque), and an old fort sits atop a hill overlooking the whole town. In fact, I went there two days in a row, just to be able to snap some night-time pictures also. Great sights and a great, extremely divers town (picture left).

Aside from the capital, the most popular, most beautiful (and most expensive) beaches are all on the west coast. La Preneuse is a great small (not very crowded) beach that I went to one of the days, while the quite amusingly named Flic en Flac is very popular, and sports some of the best beaches ever.

Getting around isn't a big problem here at all. Buses are quite cheap, but may be slow. And taxis are very expensive, mostly because gasoline isn't exactly cheap here. But the two days I rented a car were phenomenal! Sure, the driving on the left takes a little bit of getting used to, but after Japan, Hong Kong, and Australia, I had plenty of practice already! It just gives you a degree of freedom to do things and see places you wouldn't otherwise, and to just be able to pull over when you see something you like is great!

But now, sadly, my time on Mauritius (is it "on" or "in", when it's an island?) is almost over. I leave very early Thursday morning for my flight to Johannesburg. I ended up staying in Mauritius just a few days longer than I had initially planned (9 days instead of 7), but that was no problem whatsoever. Yes, 9 days is too long to do your basic sightseeing and "beaching" all the time, but to really see and experience everything I wanted to do (Mauritian life), it wasn't nearly enough time. Yes. I think I will be back. Perhaps, February 6th, 2017...